


Into the Blue

by LittleMissPascal



Category: Prospect (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Atlantis Inspiration, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Love at First Sight, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Chronological, Romantic Fluff, Uncharted Video Game Inspiration, myths and legends, no beta we die like men, no y/n
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29344194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissPascal/pseuds/LittleMissPascal
Summary: Huffing a quiet laugh, you teasingly pinch at his chin. “At least if we’re going down in history, our names are going down together.”Ezra leans in, brushing his lips feather light against yours, brown eyes hooded. “Never has this old soul heard of any fate sweeter than that.”
Relationships: Ezra (Prospect 2018)/Reader, Ezra (Prospect 2018)/You
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Into the Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted on Tumblr. NOTE: The segments are not in chronological order cuz that's how my brain was inspired to write this, so keep that in mind from the beginning :)

You stand at the edge of the shore, staring out at the horizon line where the sky kisses the sea day after day, an eternal romance. Saltwater tickles your toes as the ocean waves sweep across the sand, goading you to come closer, just a few more steps. 

The sun is beginning its descent, changing the sky from blue to a blurred myriad of oranges and pinks. Goosebumps rise along your exposed arms and legs as the wind picks up, flooding your nostrils with seasalt and a distinctive oily, fishy stench native to the planet’s atmosphere. Your nose scrunches up, stomach clenching queasily. 

A whole five minutes pass before you sense him standing behind you. Ezra’s presence has become familiar to you the same way you recognize your own shadow. He’s always nearby, going through the same exact motions as you, your very own counterpart in every sense of the word. 

“You having regrets, little magpie?”

You tilt your head, glancing at him over your shoulder. His brown eyes glow in the fading sunlight, drawing you in like a moth to a flame. “Life’s too short to have any of those,” you answer, but your voice sounds shaky even to your own ears. The water’s temperature seems to drop abruptly, resembling shards of ice digging into the tender flesh of your ankles. “There’s no turning back now though, is there?”

“No, there isn’t,” Ezra says with the barest hint of remorse. “There’s only moving onwards.”

XXX

You learned about the job when you had just finished your contract as a field medic looking after a squad of prospectors harvesting red epsarskite on Asterion-49. Dropped off at the Pug, you scoured the job boards for your next assignment when a tall, bearded man loudly smacking gum appeared at your elbow. You’d seen him a few times in the past, sometimes with a young blonde-haired girl trailing behind him who wore headphones blaring pop music, lost in her own world. 

The man had never said a word to you up until that moment.

“I need a medic,” he told you after introducing himself as Damon. “A thousand credits. Job’s yours if you want it.”

You agreed without hesitation. It didn’t occur to you to ask where the job was, not when the payment was that rich.

Looking back, you pinpoint that exact moment as the one where you lost control over your own fate.

XXX

“So, do you think we'll really find the makara pearl?” You wonder in-between Ezra’s readings of passages from his favorite books. He’s been sharing the words of Hemingway and Steinbeck, Faulkner and Fitzgerald, entrancing you almost enough to forget the watery, endless void outside the window next to you, and the cold metal walls of the sub reminding you uncomfortably of a drop pod.

You lean your head against the wall, watching the tender way Ezra closes the book in his hands, letting the pages gradually get reacquainted with one another rather than slamming it shut. Beneath the overhead light, vibrating slightly due to the distant thrumming of the sub’s engines, Ezra’s blond streak appears white, as if he’s aged thirty years.

“I’ve long been intrigued by the historic stories spun about the allusive treasure,” Ezra tells you, his honey sweet tongue choosing each word with precise care, searching through the library he has memorized in his head until he finds exactly what he means to convey. “I think, little magpie, the circles Damon’s got us swimming in will link our names to one of those tales. The farther down we go, the further descends our madness.”

You smile, but it’s bitter at the corners. “With the amount of stim gum he consumes, I wouldn't be surprised at all.” You stretch out your legs, letting your socked feet settle atop his thighs, but he surprises you by grabbing them and pulling you closer until you’re sitting on his lap, encased in his strong arms. Huffing a quiet laugh, you teasingly pinch at his chin. “At least if we’re going down in history, our names are going down together.”

Ezra leans in, brushing his lips feather light against yours, brown eyes hooded. “Never has this old soul heard of any fate sweeter than that.”

Later on when the crew gathers for dinner which consists of a meager selection of rationed slurry packs, you listen to Cee tell you about the novel she’s writing. You hang onto every word, forgetting to sip the liquid nutrients if not for Ezra gently nudging at your arm every few minutes. He’s a solid line of warmth against your side, bodies pressed against each other from foot to shoulder. The rest of the crew remain separated from each other by several feet, distrust still palpable even after nearly two weeks of daily contact. 

Ezra follows you to your bunk afterwards, slipping under the sheets beside you as he has since the very first night. You’ve been having trouble keeping track of the hours ticking by without view of the sun, and it’s even harder for you to comprehend the sub is slowly diving deeper and deeper down a tunnel into the Blue’s core. Ever since Damon announced the sub had reached the tunnel’s entrance, you thought you’d wake up and be at the planet’s center, but several days have passed and the sub seems no closer than before.

“I hope we find something at the end of this, if not the pearl,” you say, tucked against Ezra’s side, body conforming perfectly to the shape of his. You’d had sex with him the first night on the sub, passionate and steamy with roaming hands and urgent lips, an outlet for the pent up sexual tension that had been steadily increasing from the minute you met one another. However these last few nights you’ve both just held each other, desiring nothing but sleep and the comfort of knowing you’d survived another tedious day together.

Ezra’s eyes are shut, but you know by the heavy way he sighs and the way his fingers drum rhythmically against your hip he isn’t asleep. It’s a distracting and welcoming comfort compared to the darkness you glimpse outside the sub’s windows. In space, the blackness had been broken apart by random spatterings of stars. In the Blue, there’s nothing but the depths in every direction you look.

“Always the collector, aren’t you, little magpie,” Ezra says, and you love feeling the vibration of his voice through his chest. You don’t need to see his face to know he’s smirking. “Those beautiful eyes of yours searching for incorruptible tangibles in a world of perishables.”

“We’re not going to perish.” Your fingers clench at the fabric of his shirt, forming a fist as your knuckles bleed white. “We’ve got to make sure our story’s spun.”

Ezra’s hand moves from your hip to the back of your neck. It sits there, not gripping or pinching, just resting like an anchor along the sand. You recognize its placement for the challenge that it is. Silently daring the universe to try and split you both apart before either of you are ready.

You sleep with a smile on your face. 

Ezra only commits to fights he knows he’ll win.

XXX

You spend the day before heading into the Blue exploring tide pools along the shoreline, peering down into the little windows of aquatic life. Each one contains a variety of colorful creatures; squarefish clinging to the rocky edges and little crustaceans crawling across the sandy ground. Their world is so small, you think, no bigger than a puddle and yet they’re content. 

For every one of your assignments across the galactic frontier, you collect souvenirs. Little keepsakes to remind you of where you’ve been and how far you’ve come. You pick up a spotted, periwinkle shell recently discarded by the waves on the beach, still wet and sticky with salt. It’s smooth to the touch, small enough to fit in the center of your palm. Perfect for your collection.

“How fortuitous,” a voice says from behind you, nearly sending your heart into cardiac arrest. “I was beginning to postulate our paths would remain parallel lines, in close proximity but never intersecting. Alas, I do have the wherewithal to admit there is a thrill to be found in my hypothesis being proven incorrect.”

You recognize that voice. These past few nights the crew of the impending expedition had chosen a local bar as their source of entertainment, knowing these were their last few nights to enjoy fresh air and alcohol. You’d never been a heavy drinker, knowing and having seen firsthand what the long term effects of alcohol can do to the human body if imbibed too often. That voice was the only reason you kept returning; that voice, and a pair of luminous brown eyes, and the muscles rippling beneath tanned arms when lifting overfilled trays of colorful beverages.

You’d made a point to sit at a table distanced from the other crew members. It was easier that way to keep the whole room in sight, to slip out the door for a quick escape if the atmosphere got too rowdy for your liking. The others probably thought you were snobbish, a goody little two shoes who didn’t know how to have fun. Maybe there was some truth in that opinion, but you’d never been one to care about what other people thought about you. If you had been, you’d never had made it a day through your medical training.

Swallowing the last of your emerald wine, you set the glass down on the smooth wooden tabletop. Before you could decide whether it was time to leave or to order another one from the bar, the front door swung open and a man sauntered in. He was wearing a black cotton shirt, sleeves stopping just above his elbows, and a pair of worn jeans, but what hooked your attention was the streak of blond in his dark hair. You imagined a bolt of lightning in a stormy sky, half-convinced maybe electrocution was responsible for such a remarkable characteristic. 

You chuckled dryly at your own twisted humor. The sound was quiet enough to be muffled by the boisterous ambiance of the bar, yet somehow, against all the odds stacked against you, his gaze met yours. There was something shining in his eyes even though he wasn’t smiling. You thought about lightning again, only this time it was you that had been struck, paralyzed in place.

Damon interrupted your staring contest by stepping in front of the stranger, clapping him on the shoulder. The two knew each other, you surmised. Then recognition hit you like a punch to the jaw. Damon had said you all were waiting on one last member of the expedition, a prospector who was one of the best in the business. You had never made a bet in your life, but you’d wager all the credits in your pockets that man was him.

Your bet would have proven profitable, too, as you discovered the man mingling amongst the other crew members the following night. You kept your distance still, assessing him from afar, and noted how seamlessly he could insert his presence into an ongoing conversation. A social chameleon. Everything about him intrigued you, but you’d felt too skittish to approach him in a room full of staring eyes.

Here on the beach though, it’s just you and him and the tide pools. 

Slowly, you turn around and see the man approaching you from the shoreline. Your heart lodges in your throat when you take in his shirtless form, unable to tear your eyes away from the water droplets leaving glistening trails in their wake as they slide down his shoulders and chest, only to be absorbed into the fabric of his shorts. Cheeks flooding with heat, you realize he’s watching you watching him. 

And enjoying it, too, if the wide grin spreading across his face is any indication. You swallow back a whimper when you notice there is a dimple curved into the side of his cheek.

“Hi,” you say, only to be mortified when your voice cracks. His smile brightens, if that’s even possible. Clearing your throat, you hold out your hand, introducing yourself.

“Ezra,” he answers, enveloping your hand with his larger one. It’s rough and callused which is to be expected considering his profession, but your breath catches as his fingertips lightly brush against yours when he pulls away. “Do you have a penchant for gathering seashells, or did this one just happen to tickle your fancy?”

You look to the shell in question, feeling abruptly shy about being caught. “I like collecting things,” you say. “Things no one will miss that I can keep to remember this chapter of my life.”

“No one told me a magpie was amidst our ranks,” Ezra says, looking you over from head to toe with what you can only identify as wonder in his voice. His brow furrows then, expression pensive. “Pardon my curious nature, but I am nothing if not bewildered as to why a pretty little bird like you is associating themselves with a group of uncultured individuals such as I and the rest of Damon’s employees.”

You blink, thinking you detect a note of genuine concern buried beneath the avalanche of syllables. “He needed a medic. I needed a job that paid well.” You shrug and gesture to your surroundings. “Here I am.”

Ezra smiles again, a sight you’re becoming addicted to. “Here you are.”

You don’t ask him his reason for being here, beyond the obvious fact Damon was involved one way or another. Everyone, including Damon’s own daughter, has grand hopes attached to the promised reward if they manage to find the makara pearl. Some hopes are more selfish than others, yours admittingly included, but they still can be considered grand nevertheless.

It’s a short walk down the beach to where Ezra had left behind a knapsack containing a towel and spare shirt which he slips on once he’s finished drying himself off. You silently mourn the loss of viewing such tantalizing bronze skin. He surprises you by pulling out a kreo melon, and then immediately throws you for another loop when he splits it into halves and offers you one. 

Sitting beside each other, you exchange polite conversation with him in between bites of sugary sweet melon. You can’t help smirking at the way he answers your questions with forty words when a mere two will suffice. Anyone else it would have come across as annoying, but with him you can only consider it endearing. 

“Kevva gifted us mere mortals with tongues,” Ezra says. “It’s only fitting, using mine to the best of my capabilities, be it speech or…other extracurricular activities.”

And there it is again, that shining gleam in his eyes. The air becomes thick with tension and the waves fall silent, as if the Blue itself is waiting with baited breath for your next move.

“The best, huh?” you hum, the corners of your lips lifting teasingly as the rare sensation of bold courage comes over you. “I suppose that means you aren’t in any need of extra practice.”

“Let’s not arrive at any hastily made convictions,” Ezra protests, reaching for your hand as he says it, seeming afraid you’ll disappear if he lets you go. “Listen when I say I’d rather tear myself apart with my own two hands than reject the opportunity of spending another moment in your divine orbit, little magpie.”

You lick your lips, finding self-satisfaction in the way his gaze dips to track the movement. “Spare your charm,” you whisper, leaning closer until your noses almost touch, breaths intermingling. “You’ll need it for my bed.”

XXX

A knot of nerves forms in your stomach as you stare at the massive submarine Damon intends to be your base of operations for the foreseeable future. Floating at the end of the dock, it rivals the size of a space freighter with a sleek silver body designed to cut seamlessly through the water. There’s a massive logo of a seahorse stamped on the metal near the rudder, the same one of the corporation Damon claims is sponsoring the expedition. You wonder, not for the first time, what is so damn special about the pearl you’re searching for.

You notice Damon emerge from the sub’s interior with another one of his hired crew member’s, a dark-skinned man you previously overheard is called Mikken. Everything about him screams former military from the blunt way he speaks to the short-range thrower he keeps holstered at his hip. Still, for the most part he seems harmless. Especially when compared to—

“Someone’s looking like a scared little girl,” Inumon taunts as she slithers around you from behind. Her accented tongue fuels each word with venom, meant to poison and fester within your ears. “Even Damon’s brat has braver guts than you.”

“Cee doesn’t have to worry about rationing our medical supplies,” you reply, using all your self-control to keep your shoulders from tensing up. She’s one of the few female crewmembers Damon hired other than yourself and she sets off every single one of your internal alarms; each one blaring this woman isn’t trustworthy, to stay as far away from her as possible.

She smiles, a feral show of teeth looking far sharper than any regular human’s should. “No one will get hurt so long as they remember to stay in their assigned lanes,” she says, punctuating her remark by adjusting the strap of her rifle thrower stretching around her shoulders and over her chest. 

You are unable to hold back a shudder as she stalks away towards Damon and Mikken. Biting your bottom lip, you briefly give into your worries about being stuck underwater in a giant metal machine with total strangers who are so comfortable around weapons it’s almost painful to notice. 

You’re getting a thousand credits out of this venture, you remind yourself. You can open your own practice and still have sums leftover with that amount of payment. Your dreams, so long having been distant and unattainable, are finally, _finally_ within your grasp. 

_You can do this_ , you think, steeling your resolve. _You must._

XXX

“The makara pearl is the pinnacle of mythical gemstones.” Damon thrusts a journal in front of your face, opened to a sketch of a massive, neon blue orb. “I’ve been assigned funds by Kampos Enterprises to lead an expedition to its location which I’ve precisely pinpointed.”

Your eyes flick between the drawing and his face, narrowing with skepticism. “Every story I’ve heard about this pearl has ended with the explorers either dead or bankrupt. What makes you so certain our journey will be any different?”

Damon chuckles, leaning back against his desk and out of your personal bubble. He carelessly throws the journal aside, nearly knocking over a glass bottle containing a clear liquid with a noticeably foreign language label pasted on its side. You have no idea what it is or why he has it, but you have your suspicions it isn’t legal. He then fishes his precious box of stim gum out of his shirt pocket, stuffing several pieces into his mouth. “None of those explorers had my research,” he says around his chewing. 

You barely hold back a grimace at his self-inflated ego. It’s a thousand credits, the voice in the back of your head reminds you. You can put up with anything, even if it’s this arrogant dick, for a thousand credits.

“It sounds like a thrilling adventure,” you say eventually, standing up from your seat. It’s not a complete lie. Some small part of you is excited at the notion of discovering the treasure, even if logically it seems entirely impossible. 

“Make a list of the supplies you’ll need and leave it with Cee. She’ll make sure they’re purchased.” Damon waves a flippant hand in the direction of the doorway, referencing his daughter you’d exchanged a brief greeting with when you’d arrived at their home. The teenager hadn’t seemed particularly interested in your presence, turning back to scribbling in her notebook as soon as her father had come to retrieve you.

You nod, backing out of his office without another word. And if you happen to form the opinion it’s irresponsible of him to give such an important task to a child of all people, there’s no one around to hear you speak it.

XXX

You lay down first on the bed, Ezra crawling in after to kneel between your spread legs and press kisses over your hip bones in a way that makes your toes curl against the sheets. Your skin feels as if it’s burning, nerve endings sparking white-hot where he places his lips. 

When his mouth collides with yours, tasting of peppermint toothpaste and something uniquely _Ezra_ , you take advantage of the new position to wrap your legs around his waist. Kissing Ezra comes as natural as breathing, like you both had been prepared for this encounter your entire lives. Your heartbeat throbs in your eardrums so loudly it’s almost painful, but you’re able to make out his frantic murmurings of praise.

“So perfect, little bird,” he says, voice absolutely wrecked, as he ruts against the sensitive flesh of your inner thighs. “Eclipsing any vision I could possibly contrive.”

You moan, low and throaty, when he presses himself impossibly closer, the lean muscles of his abdomen grinding against your stomach as he greedily steals another kiss, muffling your pleasured whines. His fingers run up and down your torso, under the swell of your breasts, as if he can’t control himself, like he’s trying to memorize every inch of you but keeps forgetting, starting over and over again.

In the aftermath, when both your bodies are trembling with the lingering traces of adrenaline and passion still swimming in your veins, your heavy breathing fills the otherwise silent space. Ezra gently maneuvers you until he has you nestled comfortably between the wall and him. As he wraps an arm around your waist, all you can feel is the warmth emanating from Ezra’s body and the tingly, satisfying ache between your legs.

More than anything, you wish you could hold this sensation in your hands. Lock it away in a jar and store it amongst the rest of your cherished collectibles. 

Lightning in a bottle, you think before drifting off.

XXX

As the weeks dredge on, the crew starts becoming restless within their metal confines, Ezra included. You catch him more and more often staring out the sub’s windows, mind a million miles away, and in those moments you hold onto him tightly, pressing your face into the space between his shoulder blades until he finds his way back to you. You’re his anchor, he tells you one night, whispering the confession between softly pressed kisses. The only thing keeping his sanity from drowning in the dark waters of the Blue.

Ezra teaches you about the equipment he uses for harvesting gems across the galactic frontier, most interestingly a finely tuned laser scalpel and several bottles of chemicals he stresses can be lethally explosive if mishandled. In turn, you teach him about different types of medicines, including natural herbal remedies if he should ever find himself wounded on a planet without a med center. The mere thought of him being hurt, or, even worse, alone and injured, has your stomach tying itself into anxious knots. So you commit yourself wholeheartedly to these lessons, finding minimum comfort in the fact that if Kevva prohibits you from being there to heal him, at least you’ve taught him everything you know to give him a fighting chance at surviving.

Some days neither of you exchange words, not for hours on end, communicating everything you need to with gestures and looks, eyes meeting across the room and recognizing every thought crossing your minds. Cee thinks it’s cute, says you’re like two parts of the same whole. 

Others think you’re too close for comfort.

“I’ve never found codependency attractive, but maybe that’s a side effect of the Blue. Turning scared little girls into lap dogs desperate for a good petting,” Inumon says over lunch with a smile resembling one a predator would wear when cornering their prey. 

You feel Ezra tense at your side, see the way his nostrils flare with hatred for the female who evenly meets his narrow-eyed glare while she sips her slurry pack. 

It’s not the first time she’s criticized your—Relationship? Partnership? Friendship with benefits?—whatever ‘ship’ it is. She feeds off of others’ discomfort, and she believes she can stuff herself with yours.

But late at night, when you’re overwhelmed by Ezra’s closeness, by all the places where his fingers linger and trace. You know the truth: this bond is beyond her reach. 

Still, that doesn’t mean Ezra doesn’t offer. That he doesn’t whisper sins in the dark, “I can handle the snake, my sweet. There’ll be no proof her existence ever occupied this sub. Not one iota.”

It’s terrifying, what he’s offering to do on your behalf. Undoubtedly the worst thing anyone’s ever said when in your bed. It might also be the sweetest. A wicked part of you cannot help cooing at his fierce dedication. 

“You’d really do that for me?”

Ezra presses a kiss to your temple. “What do you reckon, little magpie?”

The questions are unnecessary. The answers are obvious.

“Don’t do it, Ez.” It’s a weak plea, even to your own ears. You try again, firmer sounding. “Don’t get your hands bloody for me.”

He cups your jaw and turns your head until you’re breathing the same air as him. Unbiddenly, your eyes trace the scar along his cheek; perhaps the only chapter of his life he has yet to share with you. 

“My hands were stained red a lifetime before the crossing of our paths.”

XXX

The air pocket within the Blue’s cavernous core is a shock; firstly because it being real validates Damon’s research and consequently his ego, but more importantly because when the sub surfaces it contains a flourishing island. Massive crystalline stalactites are protruding out of the walls and ceiling, shining as bright as sunlight upon the secret domain. Plants and trees unlike any you’ve ever seen cover the island, creating a jungle of green. Damon could care less about the natural aesthetics, all of his attention consumed by the imposing mountain of gray stone located directly in the island’s center. Water gushes from an unseen source down its peak, its incessant roaring rattling inside your sternum despite its distance. 

“That’s where we’ll find it!” Damon exclaims, arms gesturing wildly in the mountain’s direction, voice reverberating off the rock walls with the same intensity as gunfire. “The makara pearl will be ours before the end of the week.”

The crew are not immune to his infectious glee, but the reason for their grins you suspect is less about the pearl itself and more about being one step closer to their promised credits. Mikken corrals them together to begin the process of unloading supply crates from the sub, pitching tents and setting up a campsite near the treeline.

Ezra spares a moment to stretch before helping, letting out a low groan as he raises his arms high above his head. A strip of skin is revealed as his shirt rides up and it’s almost enough to distract you from the uneasiness prickling beneath your skin. There’s something not quite right about this place, an eeriness you can’t pin down with words. You’re not sure you even want to because once you name something, there’s no more ignoring it.

“This island has been untouched by mankind for thousands of years, possibly since its inception,” Damon continues to ramble, not even pausing to breathe. 

If Cee hadn’t been standing at your side, you never would have heard her quiet snort of derision. You look at her, eyebrows drawn in confusion, and she points to the trunk of a tree where two sets of initials have been carved deep into the bark.

“Someone must have been here before us,” she says simply. “Nature doesn’t know the alphabet.”

You bite your lip until you taste blood, unable to stop yourself, because it’s the confirmation you didn’t want to hear. 

“ _Ezra_ ,” you say, grabbing onto his sleeve when he passes on his way to the camp, carrying his box of equipment. His sharp eyes catch the trembling of your fingers, how you seem seconds away from crumbling into pieces. 

He leaves his things at Cee’s feet without hesitation, then guides you away from the others with a hand on the small of your back. You lean into him, finding relief in the way his strong body supports you effortlessly. 

“I don’t like this place,” you say, distantly registering the way your voice cracks. In this moment your usual roles of support have been reversed as you need him right now more than ever to be your anchor. “Nothing makes any sense, Ezra. Someone’s beaten us here, someone who clearly didn’t make it back to the surface or else we wouldn’t be here hunting this damn pearl! I don’t want whatever happened to them to happen to us. There’s something _wrong_ about all of this. I can feel it.”

There’s a small pause of silence before Ezra’s moving closer, arms opening like an invitation. You fall into his embrace, wrapping your arms around his waist and burying your face into his neck, blocking out any glimpse of the damn island. He shushes you quietly, lips hovering over the shell of your ear to keep others from overhearing.

“There isn’t the slightest of chances any danger here or anywhere else in the galaxy is gonna harm even a single hair on your head, little magpie,” Ezra says, rubbing his hands up and down your spine, a gentle repetition that has you further relaxing into his hold despite your lingering worries. “I won’t let it.”

XXX

There is a half-second of time when the ground starts to crack beneath your feet you almost want to die. You think being swallowed whole by the island’s wrath would hurt far less than being consumed by the agony swelling viciously within you.

 _He’s coming back_ , you tell yourself as the wind rages and blows sand into your eyes, stubbornly clinging to hope.

 _He’s coming back_ , you tell yourself as you fight against hands desperately trying to pull you towards the safety of the sub, ignoring their screams of your name because their voices aren’t his.

Ezra had promised he wouldn’t let anything harm you. But you realize his vow has been broken when you glimpse Cee through the chaos hauling Ezra from out of the treeline, his arm wrapped around her neck and his boots weakly dragging along the ground. 

_Didn’t you know you’re a part of me?_ You resist the urge to scream at him, instead slipping into your professional headspace and cataloging his injuries, especially the odd angle his right arm hangs. _Anything that hurts you, hurts me too._

XXX

“How’s your novel coming along, Cee?” you ask the younger girl as the crew eats a dinner of slurry packs and bright pink berries found growing on the island trees. The glow from the crystalline stalactites on the cavern walls had gradually dimmed throughout the day, almost as if they could sense the sun setting in the sky miles above them, and everything beyond the flickering light of the campfire is pitch black, intensifying your unease. 

“Slow.” Cee picks at a thread coming loose from the hem of her shirt. “Now that we’re here, my father says I need to focus on more important things.”

“What could be more important than your magnum opus?” Ezra asks, casually setting his hand on top of your thigh. You like how he doesn’t even try to be subtle in his means of comforting you. He knows it’s taking all of your willpower not to incessantly bounce your leg, a bad habit that doubles as an outlet for your anxiety, because you don’t want to worry Cee or, Kevva forbid, give Inumon another reason to mock you. By placing his hand in the same gentle manner as he had upon the back of your neck all those distant nights ago in your bunk, he’s reassuring you of his presence.

So long as he is near, you’re invulnerable.

“Cultivating skills relevant to the successful recovery of the makara pearl.” You can tell by the note of snobbishness in Cee’s tone she’s directly quoting her father. 

Turning your head, you spot Damon sitting on the other side of the campfire, oblivious to any and all conversations as he scans through his journal of research. To his left, Mikken, Inumon, and another male crewmember you only vaguely recognize—Jason? Or Jack, maybe?—are huddled together. Memory recalls them usually being in the same vicinity as one another, but there’s something almost foreboding about their closeness right now, the way they’re murmuring amongst themselves. A nagging voice in the back of your head warns you to _pay attention, this is important._

“Don’t you listen to any of that,” Ezra says, startling you. Your gaze snaps back to his face, genuinely believing for a second he’s read your mind, before understanding dawns when you see he’s still talking to Cee. “You’re in possession of a talent few lucky souls are gifted with. There’s far too little literature circulating the galaxy. It’s in dire need of your creativity.”

“You could use the reward credits to get your novel mass produced,” you suggest, leaning further against Ezra’s side when he squeezes your leg. 

“Yeah, maybe,” Cee says, looking a bit flustered at all the attention, a bashful smile gracing her lips. She nods her head in your direction. “What about you? What are you going to do with the credits?”

You’re all too aware of the way Ezra tilts his head at you then, how his molten brown eyes reflect the firelight as he awaits your response. The moment feels heavy, yet fragile enough to splinter if you so much as inhale too loudly. 

“Well,” you say after a beat, toying with your fingers so you don’t do something stupid like grab onto Ezra’s hand. “I’d like to start my own med center someplace where there isn’t one already, so I can provide first aid to people there who didn’t previously have the option.”

“Oh, that sounds amazing,” Cee gushes before her gaze slides to Ezra. “And you, Ezra? I saw how old your equipment looks. You gonna use your credits to buy new ones?”

“That’s not a ludicrous idea,” Ezra says, giving the girl his whole attention. You selfishly wish he’d hadn’t looked away from you. “But the honest answer to your question is that I’ve begun mulling over the virtues of a life of permanency.”

Cee’s eyes widen to the size of moons. “You want to settle down somewhere?”

“Not every floater lives long enough to reach this milestone. It’d be foolish not to at least contemplate it,” Ezra says with a small shrug of his shoulders. 

Then, before anyone has a chance to speak further, his hand moves from your thigh to interlock his fingers with yours. 

Your breath hitches in your throat, eyes darting from your entangled hands to his face, thoughts turning to static.

“Especially when you meet someone who transforms the meaning of home from a place to a person.”

The words float in the air, separate from the smoke and embers, demanding to be acknowledged and yet you can’t do anything but stare at him, unable to believe he spoke them.

Ezra’s staring back looking just as stunned, like his tongue has unexpectedly betrayed him after a lifetime of loyalty. 

“I,” you start, choosing each word deliberately to eliminate the rise of any confusion. “I could build a med center anywhere, Ezra, but you’re the only home I’ll ever know.”

Later on, you’ll think there were three words which went unsaid that night, but you’ll also think that they would have been unnecessary. You knew as much as he did the foundation for a home was love.

XXX

“Have you ever heard the legend of how the Blue came to be?” Ezra asks you on day six of the expedition, mouthing the words against the crown of your head. 

You huff out a small laugh at the sheer randomness of his topic choice, the sound muffled against his throat. “No, can’t say that I have.”

“Most people think the Blue was always present, but the legend asserts a different origin,” Ezra starts, his fingers tracing shapes along the line of your spine. His naturally honeyed voice sounds even sweeter in the dark. “Once upon a time there was a boy and girl who lived here. The girl was special, see, because her eyes were the most spectacular shade of blue that ever graced the galaxy. The legend would also have you believe they were the most beautiful, but that’s clearly a mistake.”

“Oh?”

“Of course, little magpie. Nobody’s eyes could dare compete with your beautiful ones.”

You nudge him with your forehead, smiling softly. “Sap.”

Laughing, Ezra resumes his storytelling. “The boy and the girl were blissfully in love and wanted more than anything to start a life together. But they lacked the sufficient amount of credits needed for such a venture. He thought about taking a job off-planet, but that would mean leaving his sweetheart behind and he couldn’t commit to such a loss. That’s the strange thing about love, I reckon. It weakens you just as much as it strengthens you.” He sniffs and falls silent abruptly. You wonder for a brief moment if he thinks he’s shared too much, but then he starts speaking again. “The boy found employment in town, except the man he worked for was notoriously cruel. The sins he had this boy commit were so horrific it bordered on barbarism and I refuse to darken your mind with any further details. All you need to know is that the boy changed from the inside out and not for the better.”

You frown, disliking the route the story’s taking. “Then what happened?”

“Patience, magpie,” Ezra whispers, and there is an audible note of fondness in his voice. “The young girl tried everything she could think of to pull the boy out of the pit of darkness he’d fallen into. Unfortunately, her numerous attempts caught the attention of the boy’s superior who decided he quite liked the blue-eyed soul and wanted her for himself. He grew enraged as she rejected his advances and made a drastic decision that impacted both their lives.”

Your fingers curl against your palm, nails digging into the skin. “He killed the boy, didn’t he?”

“He did,” Ezra says, running his hand over the top of your head. “And it broke the poor girl’s heart beyond repair. She mourned the loss of her love so profoundly that her crying refused to end. Her tears formed a puddle at her feet that grew in size until it threatened to submerge the entire planet. It was only when the vile man who murdered her love drowned did her tears dry and she discovered there was no longer any color remaining in her eyes.”

“And that’s how the Blue was created,” you whisper.

“So the legend goes.”

You cuddle closer against his body, brushing your lips against the tendon of his throat. “It’s so tragic.”

“That’s what makes it a story worth sharing, magpie.”

XXX

You’ve grown addicted to having Ezra’s eyes on you.

The weight of his gaze wraps around you like a security blanket, protecting you from dangers far bigger than either of you. Never have you encountered eyes more expressive than his. You’ve seen the brown shade melt into liquid gold in the middle of the night when your bodies are intertwined, seen it ignite with the fire of his rage when someone’s made the mistake of upsetting him, seen it resemble a sparkling topaz when he’s telling you a story of one of his adventures. The changes are breathtaking, each one carefully memorized and filed away in your mind along with every other detail you adore. You’ve started calling that portion of your brain the _Book of Ezra,_ though you’re aware of your own selfish nature enough to know this is a story that lives and dies with you alone. 

All this to say, you nearly punch Damon in the face when he announces he’s separating you from Ezra.

“Without any prospecting experience, you’ll just get in the way,” Damon tells you as the crew splits into two groups. One planning to set off towards the mountain to find the pearl, the other staying behind at the campsite. 

“What if there is an injury?” you ask, crossing your arms over your chest. “I’m the only medic you thought necessary to hire.”

“You are only a necessary asset because Kampos Enterprises wouldn’t fund the expedition without a medic.” Damon’s bluntness hits you with the same impact as a punch to the stomach that it renders you speechless. “I won’t change my mind on this. Everyone I hired is a professional, they know the risks that come with the job.”

“You have no idea if the makara pearl even exists, you kriffing piece of—”

Ezra wraps an arm around your shoulders, guiding you away before you can release the torrent of obscene insults running through your mind. His hold on you is loose, meaning you could easily slip away from him and give Damon the tongue lashing he deserves, but your anger won’t do anything to change the fact Ezra is leaving within the hour. You instead choose to wrap your arms around his waist mid-stride, startling him as you bury your face into his chest. 

“Oh, magpie,” he murmurs, embracing you while pressing a kiss into your hair. “This chapter will end soon enough. Don’t fret.”

It should scare you how swiftly the mellow timbre of his voice soothes your racing heartbeat. But you think about the myth lightning never strikes the same place twice and you think about Ezra’s face, his smile, his eyes. 

A conclusion is reached in the span of a heartbeat: falling in love with him was never a choice, it was an inevitability.

You let out a shuddered breath of air before looking up at Ezra, pressing your forehead against his. “Come back to me, please,” you say, trailing your fingers over the line of his jaw.

Ezra grips your hand so tightly the bones in your fingers nearly break, but the words he whispers between kisses are painkillers. “I’m leaving my heart with you. There’s no one better in this galaxy I trust to look after it.”

XXX

Without Cee and Ezra to talk to or Inumon there to antagonize you, the next three days are spent restlessly pacing around the campsite and reading the highlighted passages within Ezra’s books he left behind, finding comfort in his favorite words and the notes he’d written in the margins. 

You’re not alone at camp. The other crew members are the sub’s technicians and navigators who, like you, have no experience when it comes to excavating legendary pearls. They are nice enough companions, but you worry about their increasingly thinning patience the longer the endeavor stretches on without any news. For all Damon’s intense research and planning, he had failed to predict the problem that none of their communication devices had reception.

“We can’t stay here indefinitely,” one of them announces on the third night when you’re all gathered around the fire. He’s an older gentleman, well-respected by the others, including yourself, who has stepped into the leadership position in Damon’s absence. “If they don’t return tomorrow, we cut our losses and leave. The credits aren’t worth the cost of our lives.”

While the others fall asleep one by one, you stay awake and pray to Kevva for a miracle. _It doesn’t have to be big_ , you think. _It just has to bring him back to me_.

Your miracle comes the next morning in the form of an exploding mountain and absolute chaos.

XXX

“Please forgive me,” you whisper to Ezra as you turn on the laser scalpel and position it over his mangled arm.

He says nothing, blissfully unconscious due to the shot of anesthesia you’d injected into his neck as soon as you and Cee hauled him into the sub. He’d been delirious with pain, clothes and hair damp with sweat. It’s a memory that you know will bleed into your subconscious dreamscape for many future nights to come.

Cee helps you move his body to your bunk after the amputation is finished and the wound’s been sealed with a patch gun. She then sits with you on the floor, seeking comfort from your nearness as much as she’s offering it. You don’t have the emotional energy right now to worry about the fact she doesn’t seem to care at all your clothes are covered in dried blood. 

When she breaks the silence an hour later, her words are slow and brittle. “Inside the mountain, we found skeletons. I think they might have been the ones who carved their initials into the tree. They wrote a message on the wall, a warning against stealing the pearl. My father told us to ignore it.”

Her breathing hitches as she fights back a sob, but you keep staring at Ezra, watching the rising and falling of his chest. “What happened next?” you ask monotonously.

“We found the pearl. It was just sitting there, like it was waiting for someone to come along and take it. Ezra said it was a trap.” Your chest constricts at hearing his name. “When my father went to grab it, Inumon…”

Cee trails off, tears dripping down her cheeks, but you’re able to put together the pieces easily enough. “She betrayed him.”

“Not just her. Mikken and Jack, too. They just started shooting at all of us. Ezra saved me by pushing me on the ground.” The blonde looks towards the bed then, scrubbing a hand over her face. “He tried to stop them, but when Inumon grabbed the pearl everything started collapsing. A rock fell from the ceiling and pinned Ez—”

You raise a hand and she falls silent without a fuss, letting out a quiet breath you take to mean she’s just as relieved as you are to let the conversation end.

Some things really are better left unsaid.

XXX

You experience a dizzying moment of déjà vu as you curl yourself against Ezra’s side, pressing open-mouthed kisses over his bare chest and collar bone. You’re lying in the same bunk on the same sub traveling through the same Blue depths as you once had before. Everything is the same, except not quite. 

You and Ezra are no longer the same people you were at the beginning.

Exhaling shakily, your eyes slowly drift across his body until they stare at the empty space his right arm used to occupy. 

“Magpie,” Ezra says quietly as his hand grazes the small of your back, sending a pulse of warmth up your spine from his fingertips. “Whatever gloomy thoughts are occupying your head—put them to rest.”

“Okay,” you reply, but the thoughts continue to linger, weighing heavily on your chest until it’s impossible to breathe. You somehow manage to choke out, “I’m sorry, Ez.”

Ezra tilts his head, nose brushing against yours. “What for?”

Sorry for his loss. Sorry for the failed expedition. Sorry you’re not handling your emotions better. The list is endless.

“Life is messy,” you murmur, placing your hand over his beating heart. 

“Indeed,” he agrees. “But life also keeps moving onwards. You and I will keep moving with it, one step at a time.” 

There is a long pause that follows his words where you both just simply revel in each other’s warmth. You’re on the verge of falling asleep, content to drift off knowing you’re heading towards the surface, towards the next chapter, when Ezra speaks again.

“Did you find a souvenir for your collection? Something precious to hold onto as a memento of this venture?”

“I did,” you answer, eyes fluttering shut. “I found you.”


End file.
